Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

After the terrible events of 9/11 "Jack Ryan" (Chris Pine) quits college and joins the Marine Corps. He is then sent to Afghanistan and suffers a severe injury requiring hospitalization and therapy at Walter Reed. As he is about to be released he is offered a a position in the CIA by a man named "Thomas Harper" (Kevin Costner) to essentially work as an undercover financial analyst in which he specializes in finding shell organizations that pump money to terrorists organizations. In the course of his duties he finds a lead which takes him all the way to Moscow and the discovery of a terrifying plot. Now rather than reveal any more of this film and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that I thought this was a pretty good movie overall. I especially liked the complex plot but in all fairness I must admit it got a little bit over-the-top in the end. In any case I rate it as above average.

What an utterly sad and offensive legacy for Tom Clancy. In Hollywood, truly, nothing is sacred.

Instead of the thought provoking, truth to power story we came to expect from a Jack Ryan movie, this brings us more of Hollywood's waronterrah porn.

It was interesting a bit back in 2002 maybe. Let it go. As propaganda, you've pretty much saturated your market. For the rest of us, you've actually made expensive CGI FX boring.

The thing that made Jack Ryan more interesting than a Steven Seagal character was he was thoughtful, intelligent, and not an action figure. And Clancy raised some fascinating dilemmas with American might and power.

What is this? Garbage.

All in all, the story line, chronology, acting etc in this movie are okay, but too cliché as most scenes are predictable. Keira Knightley does not portray a natural chemistry in her role as a girlfriend or mission assistant. I find the awkwardness of her scenes has drowned the tension & intensiveness of the movie.

At a positive view, Jack Ryan (Chris Pine) did a pretty good job. His cool, humorous kind of charisma paid off in this movie. There were some scenes where I actually felt funny & LOL.

My initial vote for this movie was '5' & he is the reason why I added '1' more vote.

In 2002 the underwhelming The Sum of All Fears - with Ben Affleck in the lead role - put the Ryan franchise in the morgue. 12 years on and the famous CIA analyst is back on the big screen with a brand new story and a fresh face. Perhaps they should've waited another dozen years, as this reboot is utterly forgettable and offers nothing in the way of originality or inventiveness. The action has no pulse, the plot is straight out of 1980 and there's no thriller element to keep you guessing as the "Trust No One" tagline on the poster would suggest; which is all a shock when you consider Kenneth Branagh was at the helm and his last effort Thor, was such a gleefully entertaining motion picture. It also doesn't help that the latest incarnation of Jack Ryan, as portrayed by Chris Pine, has about as much charisma as a tree. Keira Knightley, Kevin Costner and Branagh are serviceable as love interest, mentor and villain respectively, however there's little any of them can do to boost the excitement levels. It's not a bad movie per se, just a run- of-the-mill affair you'll struggle to remember after the end credits.

It's ironic that "Jack Ryan" is part of the title for this one because this is the furthest from the character that any of the films have been. Beyond a some what similar back-story, the doctor soon to be wife, and that he works for the CIA, Ryan is not Ryan. They turn him more into a spy/field agent than the brainy analyst that he's meant to be. As a result, there is nothing in this movie that makes it stand out from the rest of it's genre. It's just another spy movie with an over the top villain that's plotting world domination. It's predictable and generic. They sacrificed what made the Jack Ryan character unique.

I'm not saying that the movie didn't work as some Bond/Bourne/Mission Impossible wannabe with bits and pieces slapped together from every spy thriller ever made. It captured successful elements from those films pretty well. It's just a shame that they relied on recycling tired and over used narrative when there is still a bunch of great Ryan books that they have yet to adapt. There should be no reason to slap together this films story when a much more talented writer like Clancy still has more stories to draw from. I agree with Peter Travers comment "It's a product constructed out of spare parts and assembled with computerized precision."

Despite following a predictable formula very closely instead of the source material, the movie still works as entertainment. Chris Pine is great, despite the writers failing him, and he really carries the movie. He could be a great Jack Ryan if they actually wrote the character correctly. Branagh delivers a pretty good villain, even though he's more suited for a Bond film. There are a couple of scenes that deliver good suspense. It's just not a Jack Ryan movie. It seems that they only used Jack Ryan for the brand name rather than faithfully trying to tell a story about him.